Since there was some talk about OP Quests in the announcements lately I decided to share a few of the things I learned from using the site. I was invited to join in by members of Opium Pulses when it launched and am glad I did. Overall I've earned 35992 points on the site. The majority of that (at least 20,000) was done in just over a week when I was really into the site.

http://www.opiumpulses.com/quests

So, a few things for people who might be interested:

1. It's not a giveaway. You do have to try to earn points, and if you want the higher priced titles you will have to put into some time. Just interested in a small indie game? You can probably get it in minutes. However as you need more and more points you complete all the easy quests and start to have to do some of the harder ones.

2. Points don't always credit correctly. Don't go into it expecting everything to work right. There are issues. There are a few ways to help your odds and I'll go into those, but there will be times when you don't get the points you deserve so be prepared for that. Just keep going towards your goal and you'll get there.

3. Be careful which sites you get directed to to complete quests. Opium Pulses itself is 100% safe, however the sites linked to may not always be. I'll go over some measures for this below, but just know it's not a great plan to go in there and blindly start clicking on things.

4. I found it best to set a goal. Find a game in their selection you want and then work towards it. For me that game was X-COM. It took a while, but I just kept telling myself that I only needed X amount of points to get the game and kept reminding myself that every point I got brought me closer to that.

Okay, so if you're still interested I'll go over a few tips and tricks you can use to gain points, keep your computer safe and generally avoid as much annoyance as possible.


So you don't want to just randomly click around in a quest on any old web browser with no protection. There are ads dotted around that will lead you to downloads that could contain malware. The problem is many of those ads are seen among some of the easiest quests.

First thing to do is to create a safe browsing environment. There's two ways of doing this, either using a Virtual Machine setup or Sandboxie.

*1* Using a Virtual Machine is my preferred method, because you can set everything up how you want it save the state of the machine and then easily reset to that state. To do this you'll need a few things.

>Virtual Machine. Download Link [www.virtualbox.org]
>OS installation files. Either a DVD, .ISO, or whatever.
>Ability to install an OS, set up the web browser you want to use, and otherwise get the new OS ready to use.

After doing those things you want to set up the OS to the most optimum environment for using the site. A few things that I'll go into more detail with below will be an easy system to take screenshots. Having that already set up in the VM will save you time when you reset the state. Resetting the state will quickly become necessary when you start doing downloads, but I'll talk about that more below.

*2* Sandboxie is also good. It creates its own virtual environment that it uses on the fly and that makes it much easier to use. No complicated installation of an OS or anything like that. Simply install Sandboxie and you're ready to click "Run Sandboxed Browser" by right clicking on your browser icon which will then create a virtual environment, you can tell which windows are part of that environment because they will have a yellow border when highlighted. If a window doesn't have this you did something wrong and are running it live on your computer, which you might not want. Sandboxie is also very easy to reset by simply clicking the icon in the notification tray and selecting to delete all the files in the Sandbox.

So those are the two options. Which to use is up to you. I see no reason why Sandboxie wouldn't work just as good and is much easier to use, I just ended up using VM more. The most important time to run them is if you're doing downloads, however I see no reason not to run them all the time just to be safe.

About Clearing Cookies: It's important to do this regularly. Especially with download and survey quests. There are Cookies some sites can leave that will conflict with quests. There are Cookies sites can leave that can redirect your gains to other sites for their own profit. There are sites that will leave the same cookie as another site and if it has the older timestamp won't credit correctly. There's a ton of reasons and I'm sure I'm missing some or incorrect about some I've stated but I will say I gained way more credit when I started clearing my cookies more often. Set up a button or quick way to do this to be more efficient. CCleaner also works well.

One other thing, which is completely not mandatory but I recommend. Create a Facebook and e-mail just for use with OP Quests. Many quests require a valid e-mail address or activity on Facebook for you to get the reward. I don't want spam in my regular e-mail box and don't prefer to have sites posting random comments on my Facebook page to annoy my friends and make me look like a trashbag. Once again this is optional, but highly recommended.


Okay. Once on the OP Quests page you'll notice a few things. First on the left the quests are broken down into vendors. There's quite a few to choose from. I won't go into which ones I think are better and which ones worse, because from my reading there are people out there who had the exact opposite preferences from me. Try them all and if you feel you're having better luck with one over another then stick with it!

Instead I'll focus on types of quests and which ones I prefer. Below I'll go over a few in more depth about how to get the best out of them. Here I'll just list them from the ones I think are most reliable and likely to reward points to least.

1. Paid/Premium Quests - Basically a quest that rewards you points for buying something. There are times when you must outright pay for something, other times when you must sign up for a subscription trial that will charge you if not cancelled.
2. Videos - Get points for watching a video.
3. Tasks - Get points for completing simple tasks.
4. Surveys - Quests that reward you for taking surveys or submitting other information.
5. Downloads - Get points for downloading and installing certain software or mobile apps.
6. Miscellaneous - I'm sure there are others that don't fit in the above categories, but that should cover 99% of them.


I definitely find these to be the most likely to reward points. They are also very easy to complete. However, there are a few drawbacks with them that you should pay attention to.

The obvious is that some cost money. I avoided those. Most of the services are not very good and aren't something you'd really want to buy. Also you're probably on the site to get stuff for free, so why spend money? I stayed far, far away from these.

The second is that you have to be aware who you're giving your personal information to. Never heard of the service? Avoid it like the plague. Sound too good to be true? Probably is. Research any place you're going to give your information too. If you see lots of negative reviews or reviews mentioning it's a scam AVOID IT.

So what does that leave? Look for TRIAL quests from large businesses. Redbox Instant, Netflix, Huluu, Blockbuster, Fedex, UPS, whatever. These are all trusted companies. Make sure you are really on one of their sites before submitting anything; don't fall for third party sites. Read the terms of the trial. How long you have to cancel it. What you get. How long you have to keep it active for to be eligible for the points reward. These companies are willing to PAY for these referrals because people sign up for the rewards and fail to cancel them in the allotted time. Don't be one of these people. We're here to get stuff for free. Also note that this requires a valid credit card to complete these quests, something not everyone has. However if done correctly these quests can easily offer 10k-40k points for free, just for remembering to cancel a subscription!


These are the most basic activities you can do and almost always reward points. You simply click on a video and watch it. Sometimes you're also required to "Like" the service on Facebook or allow it to post about how you liked the video, which is why I recommended the throw-away Facebook account.

The downside to videos is that there aren't a ton of them and they don't offer a large number of points per view. I mainly viewed them as minor boosts or a quick way to make up a small number of points to reach a goal. I'd usually do them all every time I visited a site. It's usually possible to view multiple videos at one time as long as they're from the same vendor which should speed things up quite a bit.


There is one vendor that offers tasks as opposed to the standard quests from the other vendors. When you click on this vendor you will see a list of tasks that they currently have and the reward for completing them. They vary greatly in their pay out and time investment. I found the best one to be the task that's commonly offered to write questions about a keyword. It's pretty easy, you're given guidelines and then words that you're then asked to write questions about. So your words might be "Timex Watches" and you can write a simple question like "Where are some places you can buy Timex Watches?" It's super easy and as long as you follow the guidelines you'll be eligible for a bonus pay out once the question is reviewed!

The tasks are a good steady way to earn points. They always pay out and aren't terribly hard. However some of them can be rather time consuming and I didn't find it worth it for the payout. The ones that require you to do web searches and record information about them can really eat up some time.

Also be aware that you should follow the guidelines and try to submit quality work. Whatever you entered is reviewed and not only will you lose your chance at bonus points it's actually possible for you to receive less tasks quests from them if your accuracy is low enough. Some have built in checks that if you don't pass you don't even get the chance to complete the quests. So there's no way around the time requirement for this one.


Okay, here's where things start getting sketchy. Surveys are hit or miss on whether or not they reward you, and some can be quite long. After you get going you'll start to notice some of the surveys look similar to each other. That's because they're offered by the same companies. Pay attention to which ones reward and which ones don't and if you open a survey and it looks similar to ones you've had problems with getting points then just close it and look for more.

A few things that can really help increase your chance of getting points: Clear cookies every time before starting a survey! Either reset your VM to the clean state, use CCleaner or set up a quick click on your browser to do this! Make sure you follow it to the end. Take screenshots of the last page or confirmation e-mail! Make sure you're at the very end; many times there is a small "next" or "continue" button that can be hard to see. Always search them out.

Even when following all this it's not a 100% chance you'll get credit for a survey, so be prepared to do a few. Aim for ones that have a high payout so if it works it'll make up for the time you may have spent on other ones. Avoid anything 100 points or less. Avoid surveys you know are going to be excessively long.

Also, like for Premium Quests, be aware of what information you're submitting. Don't submit anything you don't want in the public or that can be abused.


Yikes! Here's where you'll really need that computer protection. Just be warned. You'll be asked to download random software and install it. Once again you'll want to clear cookies before doing this for sure. These are some of the sketchiest quests and once again don't expect to receive credit every time. Same thing applies about vendors, you'll notice some installers look the same. Pay attention to which ones work for you and which ones don't. Stick to the ones that do. Always screenshot the completed installation box along with the icon on your desktop or start menu. You'll need to reset the Sandbox or VM after just a few of these because performance will become poor.

I found Downloads only worth doing if you were willing to sit there and run through a bunch of them. They don't take much time and have a good points reward. Failed pay outs can really be helped by submitting the screenshots, which we'll go over below. However it's still not a 100% chance any one quest will reward so be prepared to do a bunch!


Everything else is pretty much a crapshoot. Basically if it sounds easy enough give it a shot, but don't be disappointed if you get nothing.

Remember there's always other ways to earn points on the site outside of Quests, daily logins and playing arcade games rewards points and there a full list of achievements that have huge pay outs, the benefit to these is they're 100% safe and reliable, but you can't unlock the non-daily achievements more than once.


Every vendor has a method to appeal when you don't get your points. This is why you should take screenshots of every survey completion page or installation completed. I had VERY good luck using their appeals when it came to the Download installation! Make sure your screenshot has the box that pops up when Installation is complete and the icon on your desktop or start menu and there's a good chance you'll get your points. I used a program called Lightshot to easily capture and save screenshots, but simply having paint open and hitting PrntScrn and pasting it into paint works fine too. Just be sure to name your screenshots so you know which ones go with which quests.


That's all I can think of right now. I hope it helps someone! Just remember if you're willing to put in the time you absolutely can get games for free and it's NOT HARD even if it can be a bit time consuming! Hopefully what I've shared will make your points earning more efficient! GOOD LUCK!

Sorry any formatting, grammar, or spelling mistakes!

http://www.opiumpulses.com/quests


Thanks to the Opium Pulses team for a great feature.